Emotional Fool!

About Notion Press

Notion Press is a Self-Publishing platform to write,publish & sell Print books and eBooks around the world.To learn more, visit www.notionpress.com

Emotional Fool! is a product of the Notion Press AuthorIncubation Program.

Emotional Fool!

Selva Ganapathy

NotionPress

5 Muthu Kalathy Street, Triplicane, Chennai -600005

First Published by NotionPress

Copyright © Selva Ganapathy 2013

All Rights Reserved.

ISBN: 978-93-82447-30-6

This book is sold subject to condition that it shallnot by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resoldor hired out, circulated and no reproduction in anyform, in whole or in part (except for brief quotationsin critical articles or reviews) may be made withoutwritten permission of the publishers.

This book has been published in good faith that thework of the author is original. All efforts have beentaken to make the material error-free. However, theauthor and the publisher disclaim the responsibilityfor any inadvertent errors.

Dedicated to my beloved friend.

Preface

Thank you for choosing to read the story of anemotional fool where I have tried to convey mostof my ideology through my protagonist, Selva. Ihave presented a fictionalized account of someincidents in my life in order to convey somemessages. Throughout my life I have tried to bepractical on my own terms, which others mightnot agree with. It would be good to keep an openmind when you read this story to understand thepoint of view of the author. I never argue orsay that what I say is always correct but I tryto justify why I said that. The justification againmight be wrong but I did it because I was able tojustify it. Many people may not understand somethings, as they might think that it is not feasibleor possible, because they might never have comeacross something like that in their life, or theymight have never thought of doing something likethat.

For example many of us at the age of post 25plus and even in early 40’s have a child in usawake. We want to do something silly at timesand are tempted to do but we never do it becausewe don’t want to spoil our image among oursurroundings. We all might think that others wouldthink us wrong, they have a different image of usin their mind and we should stick to maintain that.Prestige and ego are other factors which come into join the image brand. I have always thought ofcoming out of it and think beyond the box. Why

not possible? Is the question I always have asked. Iknow I have ended up doing silliest things in frontof others when they don’t expect it from me butthe fact is that I did it because I wanted to do it.Tomorrow I will not be regretting that I did notdo it. There are many a time I keep regretting forsomething’s which I should not have done it but Idid it. It’s pretty tough to make others understandthat there can be a third dimension to an action aswell which normally people don’t think. It mightsound in-digestible but for me it is. Possibly whenyou read through the story you might get to learnmore about the author and his opinions.

I am trying to get a fine tuned view into thisin a bit more elaborate manner by posting thefollowing. Generally, most of the relationshipsevolve on need basis apart from the friendshipone gets in school life / college life with theirclassmates because they occur naturally foreveryone. I would rather replace the term evolvewith made and if the replacement is correct thenit could be rephrased as relationships are madewillingly / unwillingly [whichever is applicable]to fulfil one’s need. In the process, only a veryfew relationships tend to proceed with mutualwillingness whereas others are just for the sake ofit. Many tend to proceed with a drive / objectivebehind it though a belief among everyone is thatfriendship is the one which has no expectations. Istrongly believe in the statement while a few maydisagree to the same. One more reason for gettinginto a drive based / objective based relationshipwhich I think is that in our country most of thethings get done with the help of love / affection

ii Emotional Fool!

people have for each other. I have noticed thismany a times, a work which is pending for amonth long will be done if someone so close to theperson who need to complete the work rings andrequest for the same. Love does conquer but thedisgusting fact is that there is a blend of fakenessconspiring with purity.I’m a person who likes to go well with anyone Icome across; I used to care for people [most of thepeople] who were around me. I felt that fulfillingtheir small wishes as a surprise would cheer themup and will remain ever in their memory. It doesn’tmatter to me if people didn’t reciprocate becauseI generally don’t get deeply involved with manypeople. I’m very choosy when it comes to openingup with people. I only open up with someone whoI respect, admire and look up to. For me, peopleare more important than anything else. I wouldliterally do anything for those few people in mylife.These were my opinions and I used to stronglyfollow it, till I realized that I am the stupidestto keep doing things to people without expectinganything back. I came across a few situationswhere I realized that the people for whom I’vebeen doing things have started to take me forgranted :P, though I never worried about it asI gave the benefit of doubt and blindly trustpeople[I don’t want to quote the live exampleof what happened :)]. I’ve always been used toget things done [I realized this only after a fewpersons quoted things to me and explained]. Iwas really taken aback and there are a few thingswhich I can’t tolerate, betrayal is one of them. Ialso learned that if there is real love / affection

Preface iii

between people [in any relationship] then itshould reciprocate. People say that Love is givingunconditionally; I’d restate that it is giving /getting conditionally.I tried to change myself and also discovered thatI’m what I have been and can’t be someone elseI want to be but I can try and help out myself inchoosing out the right people .Got to read this in a status of a friend “Lovepeople and use things instead of using people andloving things”. Very true!!!!.... We should avoidusing people’s emotions!.

I wrote this somewhere in December 2008 whenI learned about giving unconditionally can be thestupidest thing because everyone around mebelieved it. I still couldn’t resist myself being thesame I was even after learning this. I still believedin giving unconditionally. Love, affection and carecan’t be restricted over a certain point. That tooI take a way too much of care for the peoplewith whom I get emotionally attached. In fact thiscertain write up of mine got severely criticisedby a close friends of mine who said that myuniqueness should not change because of thosefew incidents and I should keep doing what I dobecause that is the way people see me. So till dateI have followed and have been the one who I wasand giving unconditionally has been my principle.Probably this story would not have happened if Iswitched to change myself. Even after this storywhich happened to me, I believe giving can beunconditional. Now probably I fit in to the titleof an Emotional Fool but I am happy being afool. I don’t urge others to be the same but it’s

iv Emotional Fool!

by choice. That is how I am made and I wantedme to be. The introduction chapter of my storymight justify why I choose to be that way but stillmany could argue I am not correct. If I agree tothem then all these statements mentioned in thisstories and many other stories will always remainas statements on books, movies and theoretical.They can never be practical. I wanted to prove thatall theories can be practical. I remember a quoteof a scientist with whom I was working duringmy earlier days who said “theory is somethingwhich looks great on paper and doesn’t work whenpractically applied, practical is something whereeverything works and nobody knows why?”. I tendto disagree with the statement. I wanted to provethings are possible and to be precise anything ispossible. All these made me calling myself as nota normal person and quite a few friends of minewould agree to the statement. Probably by the endof the story you too might agree but I botherless on that!. Huh. That isn’t attitude: P. As thestory is about how the protagonist observes himselfas an emotional fool later; I would like to keepthe introduction to a minimal. Also the story isnarrated from the protagonist’s point of view.

This is also an attempt to introduce the conceptof “blook” (blog + book), a full length bookwritten on blog style. You may find a lot ofcharacters without any background or introductionthroughout the story as they make relevance to thestory but not are pivotal to carry it throughout.

Happy Reading!

Preface v

Acknowledgement

I take the pleasure of thanking the great heartsand minds in bringing this book out. I would liketo first thank my beloved mother, who is a greatphilosopher, who always reminds me to stick to myprinciples. She has been an inspiration throughoutmy life - the struggles she had faced and the wayin which she had handled them gave me greatinsight and enormous power to understand everyissue. When I was thinking of writing a work offiction, she was the one who had advised me tointegrate some of my personal experiences in toit. As a debutant writer, I too felt that it wouldbe a new attempt to integrate fiction into one’spersonal life. This has given me an opportunity totake my writing to a different level. My motherwas always there with me as I wrote the storyand gave me suggestions throughout. Moms arethe greatest living beings around.

I would like to thank my friend Sharmila ValliNarayanan who inspired me and made me beliefin myself that my writing mattered and that otherswould like to read it too. I have known her since2008 and the interesting thing is that I have nevermet her! It’s a pretty interesting story about howI got in touch with her. I once read a reviewwritten by her for the movie VaranamAyiram on awebsite. After reading the review, I felt that it wasthe only honest review for the underappreciatedmovie. The mainstream media did not “get” themovie had criticised it unnecessarily. I wrote to

her about what I felt about her review and our e-mail friendship started from that instant and hascontinued to this day. Thank you Sharmila for yourencouragement and belief in myself.

I also thank Mr. Kanishka Gupta who had agreedto edit this and have provided a lot of suggestionsin making this book more reader friendly.

Special thanks to Arun and Darshan who were myinspiration behind beginning to write. I thank mysister Divya, Rajiv and Sugandha for supporting meto write this book. The title credit goes to Rajivas he spontaneously named me as Emotional Foolduring one of our conversation.

A special thanks to Ravinder Singh (author of IToo Had a Love Story, 2009) who guided me andgave tips on writing. I am also thankful to PreetaSuresh who did the cover design in a quick time.The cover design got a great reception among myfriends and would state that it does increase one’scuriosity to look into my book.

With deep gratitude, I also wish to thank Mr.Naveen and others from NotionPress team foragreeing to publish and distribute Emotional Foolwidely. NotionPress is a great concept andplatform to enable young writers bring out theirpieces with ease. It has actually been a cakewalkin bringing out this book through them.

I would also like to thank all my other friendswho have been a great support throughout mycareer. They were the ones who had to suffer first

Acknowledgement vii

whenever I posted an article on my blog. Theyfollowed my blog and made me believe that Icould write a book one day. Their support andencouragement [even if I had written the poorestof articles] inspired me to write this book.

And yes, a big thanks to Priya, without whom thebook would not have been possible at all. Thisbook is a tribute to her. I have no words to expressmy gratitude for her happening in my life, so Ileave my silence to pay my tribute along with thebook.

viii Emotional Fool!

1

IntroductionI was born in a beautiful little town in the southernpart of Tamil Nadu, in fact near the southernmosttip of India. Ambasamudram, the beautiful town isthe embodiment of a perfect green village, and isnow the favourite location of Tamil movie makers.

I did my schooling there and had to move todo my diploma. Thanks to the situation at homeand school, I was left with no other option. I didmy diploma in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu.I then moved to Erode as my family had shiftedthere. I worked there for about two years and thenmoved to Trivandrum, where I did my technicianapprentice training at ISRO.

I then got a job in Delhi and for the first timein my life I went to live in North India. The culturewas entirely different, but soon I adapted to mynew surroundings.

I have always been a fun loving, extrovert sincemy childhood. I actively took part in every possible

event that took place around me. I was never idle.I think a lot before taking up anything; but once Itake up something, I ensure that I see it throughright till the end. I get along well with everyonearound me. I always ensure that I create enoughfun to bring cheer to people around me. I havealways wanted to contribute to society in someway or the other since my childhood.

I have a sister who I love the most. Wequarrelled a lot when we were children. But laterwhen I moved to pursue my studies, I realized thatshe was the one who I cherished the most. I woulddo anything for my sister, and ensure sure that shegets what she wants in life.

Growing up, my family atmosphere was notthat great. Amma and Dad quarrelled almost everysecond day. It was difficult for them to take careof two children as their income was not enoughfor a family of four. I wouldn’t say that we leada hand-to-mouth existence, but we did not have agreat life either.

My sister might have possibly suffered morethan me being a girl. I wasn’t aware at that pointof time about the equality and rights of a girl child;I would say that I wasn’t aware of the fact thatshe was getting less than what I had. From thetime I found out about this inequality, I took careto ensure that she got the best of everything inthe world. At least till the time I am alive I willprovide her with the best.

We grew up in houses where the roofs leakedduring the rains, which were too hot without a fanin the summer. My mother was an inspiration whomanaged the situation well. She struggled withhaving to work, taking care of home, two children

2 Emotional Fool!

Emotional Fool!